Thursday, August 6, 2009

Our Love Will Destroy the World - Broken Spine Fantasia (Tape Drift CS)


Went to see Burnt Hills, Cruudeuces and Graveyards this past Sunday which was a ball--got to catch up with Riggs and Hall a tad, met Olson and saw all the Burnt Hills crew and Nathaniel from Cruudeuces, so overall a swell night. Tough to argue with it. Anyway, bought a bunch of Grave merch including that tour box, a tape and the new Brokenresearch Graveyards LP, but also was given a bunch of stuff from Chris, Nathaniel, and Eric of Century Plants/Burnt Hills/Tape Drift fame. Had been a stretch since I'd gotten to give Tape Drift a go, so it was swell to receive the morsels I did, including this one from Campbell Kneale's post-Birchville Cat Motel project Our Love Will Destroy the World.

To be honest, I'd never really heard Birchville Cat Motel despite the project's sterling reputation, so I was psyched to give this new one a go. Apparently this project presents a new approach for the man, but from what I've heard the sounds are more or less just the same. And by just the same they must mean some full on tectonic blasts, cause the first side here, "Charmed Haruspax," is a storm of electro-glitch out mayhem, just sheets of buzz and scuzz with these little bleeps meandering about like a moth to flame. Real crushing material that leaves little room for misconceptions, just throws it all out there and lets it invest type stuff. It's not entirely brutal though--there's way harsher stuff out there--it's just full on electronic weight with so many little sounds packed in it's a veritable sardine can of sound. I know, delicious right? Sounds like it could all crumble apart and melt into a million colors but somehow he keeps it going throughout, moving along some psychedelic train of contortion whose destination is neither here nor there, but OUT THERE. Somewhere.

Flip side presents the title track, another live document that finds the due in a similar vein only with a whole new bag of sounds to pull from. Clashing plates are droned out while rumble underneath gives it a festering quality that suggests of organs and deep body grumbles. Kneale's willingness to let it happen of its own volition is a nice thing to bear witness to, as he sort of allows it all to creep in over time. Almost like an ambient framework only the beginning is so full on that it wakes you right up, leaving no room for soporific proclivities. Shard after shard here, and once they're in they're in, so it's a real good time for all. A beautiful one, gone from Eric but likely findable else where due to the "extended" run of 150. More to come from Eric soon in the form of that Simon Wickham-Smith disc. Also, the rumor mill has it that the label's considering moving into wax territory, so that's something we can all get excited about for sure...

1 comment:

Albany Sonic Arts Collective said...

there's still a few copies left if folks wanna grab one. TOTALLY worth it!